Covering all the bases with whatever's bouncing around in my head today!

Results tagged ‘ Freddy Galvis ’

After my last post, in which I discovered three clones of my Mike Stutes photo being used on various websites, I started to wonder if there were any more photos of mine floating around out there in cyberspace, uncredited. So I spent a morning googling again.

Lo and behold, I happened upon Freddy Galvis:

Domonic Brown:

and finally a non-Phillie, Mets farmhand Eric Niesen:

I can kind of understand a Mets site not really being too keen on the idea of giving photo credit to a Phillies blog. :-)

The funny thing is that the photos of Stutes, Brown, and Niesen all came from the very same blog post. Must have been a popular one. :-)

I finally decided to contact the websites in question about their use of my pictures. I’m happy to report that all five got back to me right away (some of them within mere minutes!), and have added a photo credit to me on their sites. Many thanks to all of you for handling this so quickly!

On May 22, I finally made it to my first live baseball game of the season. Wait, let me be more specific: my first live baseball game that was not played by 11 and 12-year-olds.

Hard to believe that just less than three weeks ago, we actually had to wear sweatshirts to a Sunday afternoon Reading Phillies game, and even with the extra layer were still a bit chilly. Today, I’m hiding out in my air-conditioned house until I absolutely have to venture outside.

Anyway, back to the R-Phils, who were hosting the Richmond Flying Squirrels. :-) Gotta love that team name. J.C. Ramirez, who was acquired from Seattle as part of the Cliff Lee deal, was on the mound for the R-Phils. Ramirez gave up two runs in the second, but then settled down for the next five innings.

Taking the hill for the opposition was Clayton Tanner, who hails from the Land Down Under. Tanner, looking for his first win of the season, was perfect through six innings (by this point, I was actually kind of rooting against the home team, as it would have been really cool to see a perfect game). With two outs in the seventh, the R-Phils broke through with a single from Matt Rizzotti, followed by a two-run homer from Cody Overbeck to tie things up.

The score unknotted itself in the top of the very next inning, on a solo home run by Richmond outfielder Justin Christian. Richmond would hold on for the 3-2 victory.

Random game photos

R-Phils starter J.C. Ramirez delivers.

Shortstop Freddy Galvis attempts to field a grounder, but unfortunately he will not make the play.

This R-Phils pitcher throws caution to the wind, and does not heed all those childhood warnings about leaning back on a folding chair.

Upon closer inspection of the previous photo, it can be seen that Phillippe Aumont was apparently feeling contrasty that day, and decided to wear blue shoelaces with his red cleats.

The throw to first baseman Matt Rizzotti is not in time to pick off the runner.

Only in the minors – “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” is sung by the Singing Usher, who is wheeled around the warning track by a giant carrot.

Speaking of food, my daughter must have had food on her mind that day, as she thought they were saying “taco” when they announced Paco Figueroa, and mis-heard Rizzotti as “wasabi”. :-)

As for the major-league Phils, just a few more days until I finally get to a game. Yay! The fam and I will be at Saturday’s game against the Cubs. The forecast at the moment looks a little iffy – keep your fingers crossed for me!

First, the fun part. On Tuesday, my daughter (who usually claims to not like baseball) coerced me into taking her to the Reading Phillies game, at which the first 2,000 kids received a Webkinz “Littlekinz” dog. I should probably have my head examined – like she really needs another stuffed animal! Unfortunately it doesn’t take much coercion to get me to do anything involving a baseball game. She probably knew this, and used it to her advantage.

So while my husband and son were involved in their own activity, we made the drive to Reading on a beautiful evening for a ballgame. The gates opened an hour prior to gametime, and we arrived within a few minutes of them opening. Seeing quite a few people already gathered at the gates, and the parking lot fuller than usual, my daughter started to panic that she would miss out on her Webkinz.

Her: “Mom, what if I’m not one of the first 2,000 kids?”

Me: “2,000 is a lot of kids. You’ll be fine.”

Her: “But what if I’m not? You don’t want me to be unhappy!”

This is very true. After we parked, she leaped out of the car and started running down the sidewalk to the gate. This from a child who seems to try to avoid running at all costs most of the time. Thank goodness no one got in her way, she may have pushed them over in her haste.

Of course, there were plenty of Webkinz to go around (and still were half an hour later). A happy child and her new favorite stuffed animal:

I informed her that just because she now had what she wanted, didn’t mean we were going to leave the game early. Mom wanted to watch some baseball.

It wasn’t such a good night for the R-Phils. Starter Josh Fogg topped out at 82-83 mph (according to the stadium radar gun), and the visiting Trenton Thunder hitters teed off on him. In 3.2 innings of work, Fogg gave up 4 runs on 8 hits.

Shortstop Freddy Galvis covers second on this steal by Justin Christian:

Upon closer inspection, it can be seen that Galvis has his eyes closed!

I’m pretty sure that this is not considered proper technique.

The R-Phils baserunners were not so successful. Quintin Berry not only is thrown out at second, he loses his helmet in the process:

In the meantime, the members of the R-Phils bullpen appear less-than-riveted by the on-field action:

The bullpen was pressed into action in the top of the fourth, and Fogg’s night was done. He seems to be purposely not looking towards the dugout, as the manager is approaching to remove him from the game:

Or maybe he was simply looking at the scoreboard, wondering what went wrong.

Some excitement was injected into the evening by the nightly vegetable race. Here, Carrot uses a flying finish to edge out Lettuce and Broccoli:

Cauliflower was a non-factor, finishing well behind and out of the picture.

After eight innings, the R-Phils were only down by two runs, 4-2. But then Trenton tacked on two more in the top of the ninth, a pitching change was made, and it was now 10 pm. Since it was, in fact, a school night, we decided to leave. Two more runs were scored after we left, and the final score was 8-2 in Trenton’s favor.

Nonetheless, I think my daughter was actually absorbing a bit of the game as she sat. After a Trenton batter grounded into a double play to end an inning, she turned to me and asked “Did they just get two outs?” So there’s some hope for her yet. :-)

As for the big Phillies, they were in the process of beating the Marlins, 10-8. Was the offensive funk getting turned around?

Apparently not, as last night they gave Doc absolutely no run support, wasting a fine performance in which Halladay gave up one run in eight innings. The Phils lost to the Marlins, 2-0, and now head to Boston for interleague games.

This is never good anyway, but especially not when it seems like the Phils’ bats have been replaced by sticks of Swiss cheese. Particularly appalling is Jayson Werth(less), who struck out twice last night, making 19(!) in his last 41 at-bats.

UPDATE: The misery continues. The first game in Boston last night resulted in a 12-2 loss. At this rate, it’s gonna be a long summer….

It’s time for some drastic action.

Note to Phillies: Don’t make me come into the clubhouse and slap you upside the head with your own sweaty jockstraps!

Just like last year, the Reading Phillies are offering their Kids Club program for kids 12 and under, and amazingly, there is no charge to join. One of the perks of membership is a free ticket for kids to each of seven designated games during the season. How could we refuse such an offer? This past Sunday was the first Kids Club game of the year.

In addition to the free ticket, members of the Kids Club get to take part in a special pre-game activity for club members only. This game’s activity was an on-field photo session with almost all the R-Phils players, with the exception of that day’s starting pitcher and catcher.

Of course, the big draws, top prospect Domonic Brown and newest propects Phillippe Aumont and Tyson Gillies, were at opposite ends of the warning track, with everyone else arranged alphabetically in between. So we needed to make a choice – go to Brown first, or Gillies and Aumont?

We chose Domonic Brown, mostly because I foresee him being promoted from double-A Reading before either Gillies or Aumont. Here are the kids with Domonic:

Domonic generates a lot of speed with those incredibly skinny calves!

We then worked our way around the warning track, stopping for photos with various players, as well as the ever-popular Crazy Hot Dog Vendor. Unfortunately, just before we got to Gillies and Aumont, the photo session ended, as the players had to go prepare for the game. I did manage to snap a quick pic of the two as they headed back to the clubhouse. Gillies, who is legally deaf, wears hearing aids in both ears, and one can be seen here:

After wandering around, getting something to eat, and dealing with minor meltdowns at the gift shop, it was time for the game to start. On the mound for the R-Phils was Yohan Flande:

Flande was sharp through six shutout innings, giving up only one hit and two walks. Not a particularly hard thrower, he kept the Portland Sea Dogs batters off balance all afternoon. Here, Portland first baseman Lars Anderson has not hit the ball, he’s so far in front of it that the ball hasn’t even crossed the plate yet, and he’s already swung through it:

Starting for the Sea Dogs, a Red Sox affiliate, was Stephen Fife:

In the bottom of the first, he walked the speedy Brown, and then hit Tagg Bozied with a pitch, but managed to escape unscathed.

Domonic Brown makes it back to first in time on a pickoff attempt:

Bozied apparently shook off being hit on the hand/wrist (I couldn’t really tell exactly where – Bozied bats right-handed, so his back was to us, as we were seated on the third-base side) as he ripped a two-run double in the third to put Reading on the board.

After six innings, Reading was up 2-0 in this quick moving pitching duel. Then, the relievers came in. B.J. Rosenberg gave up four runs in the top of the seventh, on a solo home run by Lars Anderson, and a three-run homer by Jason Place. The Sea Dogs now led 4-2.

Rosenberg was later placed on the DL with a strained muscle, so maybe that explains the rough outing.

In the bottom of the seventh, Portland reliever Robert Coello returned the favor, allowing a three-run dinger to Tagg Bozied, the hero of the game, to put the R-Phils up 5-4. Bozied had knocked in all five of the R-Phils runs so far. Here he is about to be congratulated by Reading manager Steve Roadcap after his home run:

In the minors, the manager often doubles as the third base coach.

In other game action, Reading shortstop Freddy Galvis fields a ground ball and fires to first for the out:

Tyson Gillies attempts a bunt, but it ended up rolling foul:

Reading tacked on another run in the eighth, and held on to win 6-4. A great day at the ballpark, with the temperature comfortably in the low 70’s, and an R-Phils victory! Now we have to wait until May for the next Kids Club game.

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